


blooming in adversity

by nastyboy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13623948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nastyboy/pseuds/nastyboy
Summary: “I still love you,” She explains. Sakura watches as realization dawns across his face, and is quickly replaced by anger.“It’s not for you.” He says.





	blooming in adversity

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of emotions. the only way i know how to vent them is with hanahaki fics. this is really, really sad, and now i've warned you so you can't yell at me

Sasuke hisses, “It’s Hanahaki.”

And Sakura is suddenly struck by the need to laugh. She does, but it feels too harsh in the small hospital room where Sasuke is so weak that he can’t even sit up without her help. Her gaze roves over his dark hair, strung in greasy locks around his face, and his eyes, full of tired disdain. She takes in the bags under his eyes, that have worsened with the weeks, a sign of the exhaustion scored deep in his bones, and her heartbeat skips with unfounded hope. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sasuke’s brow furrows in confusion, the lines of his forehead deep from use. He looks at her like she’s crazy, like she’s not making any sense, like she would be the last person he would ever tell. Her lips purse in a frown.

“I still love you,” She explains. Sakura watches as realization dawns across his face, and is quickly replaced by anger. 

“It’s not for you.” He says. Sakura thinks he means _it would never be for you_ , but she doesn’t bother to call him on it, too devastated by having hopes, that she had carefully sealed away to never see the light of day, dragged out and crushed like an annoying bug. A moment passes where her arm supporting his shoulders becomes awkward, especially with the way Sasuke has resolutely not touched the food in his lap. She is swept up in wondering who it could be, and as her brain flickers through a list of names, the door slams open. 

“Sasuke! I heard you went and let yourself get sick while I was gone. What an idiot, right, Sakura?” Naruto, still dressed in his jounin blacks and freshly bandaged up from his most recent mission, flounces into the room with his usual oppressively loud sunshine aura. He’s rambling on about something or other, much too loud for a hospital, but Sakura’s eyes are torn from him back to Sasuke before she can gather the energy to nag him. Awful, hacking coughs are jerking Sasuke forward away from her hold. He’s hunched over his untouched meal with petals, slick with spit and blood, falling from his mouth as each cough shudders out of him. His shoulder shake with the force of them, and Sakura can only watch with the horror of realization as Sasuke pulls a battered, yet whole snapdragon bloom out of his mouth with badly shaking fingers.

Sakura very deliberately positions herself between Naruto and Sasuke then, she rubs a hand down Sasuke’s spine as more petals come sloughing out of his mouth.

“Naruto, can you wait outside a moment?” She interrupts his tirade.

“What? Why?” 

“Please, Naruto, just,” she sighs, watching Sasuke’s hands clench in the bed sheets as he vainly tries to suppress his coughs, “Just do it.” The room is uncomfortably quiet as he leaves. When the door clicks shut, she speaks again, “I’m going to tell him.” 

Sasuke’s glare is pure loathing as his head whips up. His chest still jumps with coughs, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut in a bloodless line against them. She sighs at the sight. 

“You can’t,” He rasps after spitting out more petals.

There is so much Sakura wants to says, but she only says, “He deserves to know that you are dying for him.”

“I am not dying for him. I’m dying because I can’t bare the thought of living without loving him. It’s for myself. It’s selfish.”

“Because of him, then. And we both know you are far from selfish when it comes to Naruto,” he stays quiet under her gaze. “And he at least needs to know that you’re dying.” 

“Fine.”

Sakura thinks of calling Naruto in, but decides against it. She lowers Sasuke gently onto his pillows, taking the petal covered food tray to set on the table by the window; another nurse will come for it later. She slips into the hallway, catching Naruto leaning into the wall opposite the door as she shuts it firmly behind her. His head is in his hands, and his shoulders are sagging under the weight of something great. He looks so, so tired. She relaxes against the door, waiting for him to notice her. When he doesn’t she tsks at him. He raises his head, a small smile worming onto his face as she shakes her head, arms crossing over her chest.

“Why are you here bothering Sasuke when you should be home resting after your mission?” 

“I…” Something vulnerable passes over his face, and Sakura feels her own soften in response. “I heard that he was sick, that it’s pretty bad, and I wanted to be here. For him. ”

“It is. Pretty bad, I mean. He’s not just sick, he’s dying.” Naruto’s entire face falls into despair, the news clearly ruining him. His lip wobbles like he wants to scream and cry and shout, but he doesn't. He simply presses his face back into his hands, shoulders quivering the tiniest bit. Sakura clears her throat against tears of sympathy, continuing, “The disease he’s got is rare, but if left ignored as Sasuke has done, it is lethal. At this point, his options are to die or to have surgery. He’s already decided against the surgery.”

“Why? Why is he going to let himself die? That doesn’t make sense!”

“The surgery has some unfortunate side effect that, to Sasuke, are worse than death.”

“What could possibly—?”

Sakura sighs, “You won’t believe me.”

“Try me,” He dares, and she sees a flare of the bratty child he once was as she meets his eyes. 

“Love.” Naruto’s face twists in confusion, but she raises a hand to stop him from interrupting her. “There is a tale of a plant that only blooms for those whose love is not returned,” he nods, having heard the story over the years, “It is more than a story in a way. It’s a parasite, that lays dormant until the right circumstances, namely unrequited love, present themselves then it roots into the lungs, slowly siphoning off the host’s chakra. It nourishes itself with the energy, grows until the host suffocates entirely. The surgery removes the feelings as well as the plant, and for some they are sure they wouldn’t be able to live without their love anyways, so they die.”

Naruto is silent. He is still as a statue, face frozen somewhere between the despair she had seen earlier and thoughtfulness. She stands, watching him with apprehension. Sakura feels strangely protective pressed against this door, stood between Naruto’s warring emotions and Sasuke’s fragile, dying body. Eventually Naruto comes down from the clouds. He pushes off the wall to stand tall in front of her, and she thinks, not for the first time, that he has grown so much since they were young. 

“Can I” he swallows, “Can I talk to him?” 

“Sure,” Sakura finds herself saying. She moves to the side unprompted so Naruto can enter the room, and against her better judgement she does not follow. She falls into the wall next to the doorway, turning her cheek to the wall so she can listen to murmured tones through the crack in the door. She watches dust motes dance in the light spilling from it as she sags down until she’s seated on the ground. She presses her forehead into her knees when their voices raise in anger, loud enough for her to catch snippets without trying. Naruto is saying why and who and how a lot and his words grow sharper, more pleading, with each of Sasuke’s dismissive answers. Sakura waits as they argue, listening as their tones grow cutting with a heavy heart. She thought they were past this petty, childishness. She worries as they grow wilder, Sasuke’s tongue lashing out rough, venomous words in an attempt to chase Naruto away. But, of course, Naruto doesn’t run. He pushes and presses and pulls until—

“You, Naruto! It’s you! It’s _always_ been you!” 

and everything falls silent. 

When Sakura enters the room, she’s not surprised to see them close. Sasuke is sitting up, and Naruto is perched on the bed next to him. Their foreheads are flush, the look on Sasuke’s face is solemn as his eyes track the fat, round tears tracking down Naruto’s face. Naruto looks a fucking mess with his eyes all scrunched up, his nose dribbling, and tears flowing like waterfalls down his flushed cheeks. Sasuke slowly lifts his hands to press into Naruto’s where they’re cupping his face, his own dark eyes falling shut in what can only be acceptance.

Sakura realizes that Naruto is trying to talk through his sobs after a moment. He’s stuttering out apologies and Sasuke’s name like they’re the only words he knows. Sakura can’t stop her own tears now. She takes a stuttered step towards them, suddenly unsure if she would be welcome. Sasuke’s exhausted, dark eyes flick open, gaze settling on her rigid form, and after a moment he reaches his hand out. She stumbles forward, collapsing next to Naruto, taking Sasuke’s hand in a tight grip as she slings an arm over Naruto’s waist. Naruto starts sobbing harder then, grip on Sasuke’s face tightening as if Sasuke will slip away in this moment. He starts mumbling her name too, and Sakura wonder if he’s apologizing to her as well or if he’s just glad she’s there. She rests her head on his shoulder, tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt, as she just looks at Sasuke. He looks so, so weary, as if he could fall asleep right now in their arms. She thinks he probably will if they lay down. 

It’s easy enough to get them both to lie supine, as long as she doesn’t try to separate them entirely. She squeezes in with them, even though the bed is very much not made to fit three full grown shinobi. It somehow works with the way that Sasuke has become slight in recent weeks, weight falling off him like rain off a raincoat. He is lying on his side with Naruto curled up tightly behind him, crying into the space between his shoulders. Sasuke drapes an arm over Sakura’s waist when she lies down facing him. She worms a hand into his hair, petting through the thick black locks, and ignoring how oily they are. Her other hand is taken in a crushing clasp by one of Naruto’s where they’re wrapped around Sasuke’s torso. She wiggles until their legs are all comfortably tangled together. 

Sasuke slowly, but surely relaxes in their hold. His lips stay pulled in a frown even as the furrow of his brows relaxes. She watches as his eyes flutter open once against his sleepiness. His breathing never evens out like it’s supposed to, but he does fall into a sleep with too much wheezing to be called restful. He breaths gently in their arms, and Sakura’s tears leak entirely anew as helplessness washes over her. Naruto has stopped muttering, his sobs calming into the deep sway of sleep. Her hands clutch them both as she cries herself to sleep in the pink glow of the setting sun. 

 

Sasuke dies a week later.

His funeral is held two days after on a warm, misty day. It’s spring. Sakura remembers that Sasuke had told them he hated spring once. He didn’t give a reason, but she thinks it’s because of his seasonal allergies. He always said sneezing was the most annoying bodily function. It’s a small procession because there’s only a handful of them left that cared for Sasuke enough to be there.

Sakura is quiet, eyes strangely dry as she watches the rest of the rookie nine pay their respects, dropping flowers over the casket. She watches as Naruto walks up with Hinata, his grounding force, to drop his own flower. It’s different from the rest, a beautiful, white snapdragon with salmon tinting it’s petals rather than the white roses the rest of them had. The look on his face is heartbreaking, and Sakura is abruptly questioning whether Naruto really didn't love Sasuke or if it was just too late to save him. Ino’s elbow digs into Sakura’s side, and she startles into her own turn. She doesn’t hesitate, striding purposefully up to the coffin. For a long moment, she just stares down at that orange-ish snapdragon, surrounded by rose after rose.

"Snapdragon, huh? That suits him. A flower that blooms in the midst of rocks. A flower that means strength through anything." She barely remembers to set her flowers down, one for herself and one for Kakashi. "I'm a little mad at you. I keep thinking that if it had been me, we could've avoided this. But I don't think we could've. Naruto _loves_ you, but he couldn't save you." No one says a word as she returns to her place.

The rest of the event flies by.

Much too quickly, Sakura is at home in her own apartment with nothing to do. She’s on the couch, still wearing her funeral blacks, even though they are damp, and rapidly chilling in the static air of her apartment. Sakura feels frozen, as if time had paused around her without her permission. She gazes out the window instead of eating or sleeping or working or doing anything. The clouds have cleared, allowing the sun to shine down. She stares at the dull, expansive blue of the sky as tears finally roll down her cheeks, quiet and unbidden.


End file.
